I have recently started to learn to create video games with gamesalad.com. This is an exciting tool to make custom video games from scratch. This is a little time consuming and challenging but also very rewarding when you figure out how to make some of the features work.
This is NOT free beyond the first 5 day. I will say that the 5 days only tick away when I have used the program. I tried it the first day then almost a week later I went back to it for day 2 expecting my trial to be expired and was pleasantly surprised.
So if you have always considered jumping into this sort of tool for your self or for your students. Do it! It’s worth it. You will love it.
Here are some examples of games I made so far with this program. These are rather lame first attempts but at least three fourths of them are educationally valuable. I will be subscribing for myself that is for sure. Do you have a game Idea that I can try to make for you and your students?
Elementary Math Challenge
This version contains questions about the Texas Revolution
The Wild West Challenge is intended to be played on a smart board with teacher provided questions so it will work with any grade level or content area.
This was my first draft of this game trying to learn how to make all of the characters interact and move.
Challenge your students with a math race. In this game students race the character Charlie around the track. They stop at each checkpoint and answer a math challenge. If they get the answer correct the continue the race. The race is designed for 3rd grade math students.
Transcript uses AI to scan a students digital activity and provide them with the correct answers. it even has the ability to select the answer itself in some cases. Will AI destroy digital learning by removing a students willingness to learn? Will students transition to simply completing assignments like a robot with no effort to comprehend them? Will we have to revert back to paper based assignments and text books in order to get students to learn? Was Dennis from 30 Rock correct!?
I am pleased to say I have learned how to develop a Game Salad video game that prompts students to show their comprehension of the Texas Revolution by answering questions as they battle their way across the Marsh at San Jacinto. Maximize the game below and have a go!
Congratulations on your opportunity to play the brand new custom video game I created called San Jacinto Rampage. In this game you lead Sam Houston on to the famous San Jacinto battlefield and then in epic exaggeration he will single handedly eliminate the Mexican forces and capture Santa Anna.
This is my very first attempt at making a video game from scratch. It is a challenging but fun and rewarding process with Gamesalad.com. This version lacks a massive amount of “educational value” while being played but it is fun and would make sense to students who have learned about the Battle of San Jacinto. Ideally when Sam Houston encounters each of the Mexican soldiers he would be challenged with a question and when the player answers it correctly the soldier would be eliminated. I plan to do some research on how to pull that off next.
GameSalad can be a neat tool to have students create their own videogame about a topic they have been studying. Fair warning though it is NOT free. You do get a 5 day free trial when you sign up. So you can produce a game for your kids in that time before the trial expires.
**UPDATE** I did figure out the question version of the game. Check it out here.
To play my game below click Sam Houston to start and used the WSAD keys to move him around.
I love book creator it is a fantabulous tool that I hope you are at least familiar with. Book Creator now integrates Canva which makes both programs even better for their new abilities and their coolness factor of association with each other. Have you thought about having your students create a study guide in Book Creator? They can explain and organize everything they have learned for a semester test or maybe even…. a STAAR Review Book. This will give them a new engaging way to review and study.
Check out this new video update about Book Creator. Also send me an email if you would like to get on the list for a free premium book creator account for the rest of the year. This is a tool which is great for more than just ELAR teachers. Students can make books over topics from any content area so don’t sleep on this just because you aren’t a reading teacher!
Example lesson I put together for Physics.
Student Directions
Log in to Bookcreator.com with your school district Google account.
You will be prompted to enter an invite code. You will get that code from your teacher. Once you have joined the class library you will begin creating an eBook that creatively, thoroughly, and accurately explains your topic in a manner that a 4th grade student could read, understand, and learn from.
Your teacher will provide you with a specific topic.
See the grading rubric below to ensure you are producing the best possible project and earning the best possible grade.
(As a possible bonus activity you could create a quiz that accompanies your eBook and would be used to assess a readers comprehension. Be sure that the answers to the quiz questions are in the eBook. You may use what ever format or program your teacher approves to create the eBook quiz.)
I am very excited to be digging in to Genial.ly. Genially has great templates for presentations, infographics, “thinglink style” interactive images, videos, digital games, and more. Interactive images is something that has fallen off of my radar years ago when ThinkLink became costly. I am very interested in checking that feature out and even more so… the digital games because they have tons of templates that you can turn into interactive digital games for your students. The gaming templates include digital breakouts! Those are very time consuming but rewarding activities to create if these templates are as wonderful as I hope they are this could be a game changer, as long as we are careful not to over do it with breakouts.
Let’s start with the templates. Just scrolling through the list of templates put a smile on my face. There are a lot of free ones but premium is only $60 a year if you find it worth springing for.
There are a LOT of infographic templates and only a few that are premium. These include timelines and concept maps. There are some cool themes in the list like pirates, maps, fairytales, sports, Star Wars, Harry Potter, holidays, and more. Very cool stuff!
These interactive images are going to be fantastic resources for your students to explore content. Most importantly here is going to be creating your own interactive images from scratch. Ooooh, you can embed questions into the interactive images. Here is an example I made for you. Click the share button at the bottom of the image to get the link and use it with your kids. I am going to smash it up and take an infographic and interactive it.
And now to the games!! I mean, Let The Games Begin!
HOLY MOLY this is amazing! Checkout this Jumanji game I made. It is basically an interactive image. The buttons on the game board spaces you can link to challenges. I made Google forms for mine but you don’t have to. This can be played by up to 4 people on the same device. This is something you can do with your 3 Chromebooks or an iPad in stations. Grab the link from the share button and please use this with your students to practice 2 digit by 2 digit multiplication. This is a complete working game that I created. Please give it a try with your students if it is your content area. Can I make the first Genially game for your class?
I also put together this Horror escape room over reading an analog clock. This is a massively involved and exciting activity that required very little set up on my part. Making the clock faces was by far the most time consuming part of my set up. If you are just typing or copy pasting the questions and answers you will be even quicker.
There are plenty of other amazing looking game templates for you to use and one I would recommend staying far away from (see if you notice it). What an absolutely amazing tool for you to use. Thanks ever so much to Mrs. Katie Smith at Lovelady for this wonderful recommendation. It has improved so much since the last time I looked at it.
Check out this cool new activity I just finished. It is a digital breakout type of activity over leaders from WWII. Students are asked to examine dossier files and identify which person is identified by each file. I have included some cool artifacts with most of the files that belonged to the individuals in the file.
This is not a very time consuming activity and I would suspect could be finished in 15 minutes with a full faith effort.
At the top of the activity there is a link to download the Google Form that goes with the activity. You can assign that Google form to your kids in Google Classroom.
